Several attempts have been made to develop a relatively inexpensive easily collapsible sawhorse. One such attempt is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,640,386 entitled Folding Utility Horse. This sawhorse is made of metal which appears to be necessary due to the manner in which the sawhorse obtains what stability that it has. As illustrated in FIGS. 4 and 5 of the patent, the sawhorse is collapsed and supported through a bracket assembly which is fairly complex and would be rather expensive to reproduce. The only support that this sawhorse has in the longitudinal direction is from bolt 60 and stop member 64. When assembled, each sawhorse leg engages a stop member 64 and a bolt 60 engages a slot 62 in each leg to secure the leg in place. As should be appreciated, longitudinal movement of the sawhorse will tend to enlarge the opening 62 and reduce its ability to stabilize the sawhorse. This is particularly true when either end of the sawhorse is urged in a direction opposite to the respective stop 64. Another difficulty with this sawhorse is the need to tighten and properly align bolt 60 in slot 62 which is cumbersome and time consuming.
Other examples of collapsible sawhorses are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,529,697 entitled Collapsible Horse and U.S. Pat. No. 2,983,329 entitled Demountable Sawhorse. Each of these sawhorses suffer from the same disadvantage in that they provide limited support in the longitudinal direction and they must be constructed of fairly heavy, sturdy materials to provide support.
The '697 patent uses an end bracket that is received within a longitudinal slot in the end of the cross member and bolted laterally through the cross member. The disclosed material is wood, and it appears that wood or another strong material such as metal would have to be used because in use the lateral bolt will wear on the walls of the hole in the cross beam weakening the stability of the sawhorse in the lateral and longitudinal directions. It appears that wear will occur no matter what material is used, but sturdier material would withstand wear for a longer period of time. Materials such as plastic or aluminum would not be acceptable in this type of arrangement. Regardless of the material used, the sawhorse is still relatively weak in the longitudinal direction because the only support that it receives is from the V-shaped slot 32 of extension 30 resting on shank 36 and the compressive force that can be obtained by tightening the legs about extension 30.
The sawhorse disclosed in the '329 patent has the same disadvantages that are found in the '697 patent except( they are even more pronounced. In the '329 patent the legs are only supported by the compressive force obtained by tightening the hand nuts 29 against the legs 11, there is nothing to provide stability in the longitudinal direction. Further, the sawhorse has the disadvantage of being somewhat self destructive in that every time the sawhorse is disassembled, the teeth 27 on the leg brackets must penetrate the cross member to provide stability. After repeated penetrations, the cross member will weaken and the stability will be decreased. Other examples of this type of sawhorse assembly can be found in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,973,053; 2,112,778 and 737,000. Variations of this type of sawhorse can be found in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,941, 618 and 2,343,557.
None of these sawhorses provide a light weight sawhorse which can be made of lightweight material such as for example plastic oraluminum, which is easily dissassembled to fold compactly. The present invention is directed toward eliminating the above deficiencies.